Lonegan camp deletes Booker tweet

The campaign team for the Republican running for Senate in New Jersey sent out a racially charged tweet during Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker’s debate against three rival Democrats vying for the nomination in the special election.

The tweet, which was quickly deleted, came from the @LoneganforNJ account, which is the campaign staff account for GOP-er Steve Lonegan. Lonegan tweeted at the beginning of the Democratic primary debate for people to monitor the staff feed.

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The tweet read, “#breaking just leaked - Cory Booker’s foreign policy debate prep notes,” and below it was a map of heavily African-American Newark. Scrawled over the map in different places was, “West Africa, Guyana, Portugal, Brazil.” Another annotation, pointing to Newark, read, “Middle East,” followed by “Afghanistan, Pakistan, plus Bangladesh and Trinidad.”

Lonegan adviser Rick Shaftan said, “Steve didn’t find it funny or reflective of the way he thinks and asked that it be taken down immediately. And, as you know, it was.”